Creating your own content

I make a fair chunk of my living from creating content for others, so why would I write an article telling you guys how to create your own content? I don’t know to be honest! But I do like to share, so here goes…

There is no reason why any financial adviser or other financial professional could not create their own content. There are a few reasons why they don’t, but I’ll get onto that later.

As financial advisers (or a former financial adviser in my case) we all have a huge amount of knowledge stored in our heads. Right now, all of this information is stuck in our heads, and its only chance to escape is when we are talking with a client, putting together an SOA or the million other things we do in our working day.

Even though that knowledge gets the chance to escape, it isn’t really stored anywhere except in your client’s head (if they can remember everything you said) and in your file notes and SOA (which will likely be filed away for the next seven years, rarely to be looked at again).

Besides using all of this knowledge and experience to help your clients (which is a great use – don’t get me wrong) we can also use it for another worthwhile purpose – to create content.

Why would you want to create content? Well in this context we’re really talking about content for your website, and the major benefits of content for your website can be read about in my earlier post.

If you’ve read my earlier post on the benefits of good content for your advice business, you will know how important this is to your website and to the growth of your business.

You could pay someone like me to write your content, but most financial advisers should be competent enough to write their own content.

What would you write about? Believe me, there are many things trapped in your head that would be useful if turned from memories and thoughts into readable words:

Information about how different policies work

Your opinions on the important of different products

Case studies from previous clients you have helped

Your thoughts on different strategies and how they can help people

Reviews of new products available in the market

General interest stories about the industry

Information and stories about your own time in the industry

There should be enough there to keep you writing for a very long time!

That’s one excuse for not creating content that we can strike off the list, but the reality is that there are plenty of other reasons why advisers don’t write their own content.

1. They don’t believe in the benefits of content

Many advisers are very old-school in their thinking, and I include a lot of younger advisers in that group.

They don’t believe or understand how good content can improve not only the search engine rankings of their website, but also the likelihood of then turning your website visitors into leads, and then leads into clients.

For those who still don’t believe in the benefits of good content for financial websites, I will again refer you back to my earlier post.

2. They don’t have enough time

This point is actually fair enough for many advisers. After all, why spend an hour (or more) writing your own 1,000 word article when you can pay someone like me just $90 to do it for you?

If you think you can earn more than $90 an hour doing client work (which any good adviser certainly should) then it wouldn’t make sense not to have me write for you!

3. They doubt their writing skills

Many advisers are probably better writers than they think, but it’s a fact that some people just aren’t good at writing content.

If you’re one of these people, then again it’s probably a good idea to have a professional writer like me look after it for you. After all, you don’t want your writing style to turn off any potential clients that may have found their way to your website.

At the end of the day, I personally think that with a bit of time and practice any financial adviser should be able to write satisfactory content for their website. But if you don’t have the time or interest in doing it yourself, then it might me time to get in contact with me and have a professional do the work for you.

Prices for my content are extremely competitive, and thanks to my considerable experience in the industry, including time as a practising financial adviser, you can be assured of the quality and technical accuracy of my work.